A content marketing strategy is the easiest, most efficient, and most effective way to book more clients. Easy, because it provides the biggest ROI for your time and energy. Efficient because you invest time and energy once and then continue to get results over and over (like writing a book and collecting the royalties for years after it’s published). And effective because, when done well, your content attracts clients on autopilot, nurtures and converts them into leads and does most (or all) of the selling for you. So with no additional effort from you, your audience goes from curious onlooker to clicking the Buy It Now or Book A Call button, with their wallet in hand, ready to buy.
Best of all, when you find a content marketing strategy you actually enjoy doing – that’s FUN for you – you do it more often and with more excitement and that draws even more high-vibe clients to you, ready to rock!
Now it’s time to get your message out there where your dream clients can find it, feel it and buy it. Which means it’s time for a content marketing strategy.
Fall In Love With Your Content Marketing Plan
The key to successful marketing, when you’re a solopreneur, is finding a marketing plan you LOOOOOOOOOOVE. Because when you love your marketing plan, you’ll do it more often, and the more you do it, the more it attracts clients. Enjoying what you do is CRUCIAL when you’re wearing multiple hats and doing a lot of the work yourself.
It’s a luscious cycle of having FUN and attracting CLIENTS!
Don’t worry, you don’t need to go out and learn everything you possibly can about marketing. In fact, I highly recommend you DON’T do that!!
Everything there is to know about marketing fills a very deep well, and it’s way too easy to get lost in that well by focusing your time and energy on learning instead of doing. What you need to know are the exact pieces necessary for YOUR unique business to get the best possible ROI, not everything.
How about we make a deal? I’ll learn everything there is about marketing, so you don’t have to, and you focus on that magic you bring to your clients so you can do your best work and enjoy more free time. Deal?
How To Find A Marketing Plan You LOVE
Start by looking at what kinds of marketing methods light you up and fill you with energy, and which ones drag you down and leave you exhausted.
Then focus on those activities that energize you while limiting the activities that drain you.
Which social media platforms do you genuinely enjoy being on and which ones feel like a “have-to” chore?
What kind of content do you love to produce, that feels almost effortless to create? And which ones feel like you can’t wait to hand off to a VA?
You really can build a successful marketing plan around the activities that energize you, without the activities that drain you. You CAN have a brand that’s 80% video content or 80% visuals or 80% text. When you’re the one producing the content, it’s best to focus on content you enjoy creating. Everything else can wait until you have a team.
For more ideas about how to build a successful content strategy around the activities that energize you and toss the rest, watch this video:
Next-Level Step:
Sometimes, it’s as simple as using the right tools to help you do more with less. For example, if you love creating videos or audio recordings, you can do just that for all your blog posts, emails and social media posts.
Feel like you NEED to have a text version as well in order to succeed? You don’t!
But if you simply can’t let go of that idea, use a tool to help you turn those recordings into text instead of feeling like you need to create new text-based content. For example, Google docs can transcribe what you’re saying while you record it! By the time you finish recording your video or audio, you’ve got a decent text version ready to edit and share. So you can focus on creating content that lights you up!
WHERE To Promote Your Content
Next, you want to do those things that light you up, in the place where you’re going to get the best and easiest results. If we continue with the example of having a blog where we showcase our skills like a portfolio of what we know and help our audience get to know, like, and trust us as we gently lead them towards working together, then we want to look at how to bring more people to our blog posts. We need to go out in the world and let people know about our amazing content!
If you were a hair stylist, you wouldn’t set up shop at a coffee shop would you? No one’s thinking about the state of their hair at a coffee shop, so that would be an uphill battle to sell haircuts with coffee. Instead, you want to be noticeable when people are thinking about the state of their hair. Like when they’re looking in the mirror, maybe comparing themselves to others. (At the club? In the women’s bathroom at a hotel conference? Before a job interview?) You want to be there when people are feeling like, “Dang, I really need a better hairstyle!”
The easiest and most effective way to get more clients is to be in 2 places – where they are when they’re feeling the struggle, and where they go to find a solution. What’s a gal going to do if she’s looking in the mirror of the women’s bathroom during a big conference? She’s probably going to make a note to look up stylists later. If she sees a business card that appeals to her style right there near the mirror, she’s probably going to take it or take a photo of it for later. So that’s the first place you want to be.
The second place you want to be is where she’s going to look for a stylist later when she’s focused on hiring help. Is she going to use Google? Yelp? Pinterest for looking at various styles? I bet she’s ALSO going to consider that card she found on the bathroom mirror. So imagine you were the stylist who left that card and ALSO appeared on Pinterest when she was pinning styles to her new hairstyles board. Now you look like the #1 go-to expert because you showed up in her world, right when she needed you!
Use Your Marketing Tactics To Stand Out & Be Recognized
That is the goal of marketing – to stand out and be SEEN by your dream clients and followers when they’re ready to think about buying/hiring. So it’s time to focus on how to get out there, how to position yourself as the #1 go-to expert for what you do, and how to be right where your solution is needed when your ideal clients are ready to buy.
Meet them too early, and you’ll have to wait until they’re ready. Meet them too late, and they’ve already invested in someone else’s solution.
We’re going to position your content at the intersection of “How Do I Solve This” Road and “Who Can I Trust To Help Me Solve This” Lane.
Of course, my focus is to get you seen online, so I’m not going to encourage you to leave flyers around the frame of a hotel bathroom (but you can do that too if it works for your business!) We are going to think of the online space in a similar way though.
When your clients finally get so frustrated with their current situation, where are they likely to search for a solution similar to the one you offer? Where are they when they feel the pain and where do they look for the cure?
Are they going to jump on youTube and search for a video tutorial to learn how to DIY it? Are they going to jump on Amazon and look for a book that teaches them how to solve it? Are they going to use Google to find an expert who will teach them how to cure it? Or, like our gal who needed a new hairstyle, is she going to jump on Pinterest to gather ideas?
Wherever your dream clients go to find solutions to THIS problem you solve, YOU need to be THERE.
If they’re looking on Amazon, perhaps it’s time you write a short eBook and sell it on Amazon to get in front of your dream clients. Books are a fabulous way to build trust in your methods and services and lead the reader towards buying your signature offer!
If they’re likely to look on youTube, Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, or wherever, you need to be visible there.
You don’t need to be visible EVERYWHERE. You only need to invest time, effort (and sometimes money) in the 2 places you’re likely to get the biggest ROI. You can always expand to other places once you have a team to support you, and you’ve got a strategy that works for you on a smaller scale.
The more focused your content marketing strategy is, the bigger results you’ll get with the smallest investment of time, energy and money. [Tweet That!]
Content Promotion AKA Content Marketing
Let’s assume you have a website and a blog where you create amazing content that helps your potential clients get to know, like, and trust you. (It actually doesn’t matter if you’re creating content for your blog, Facebook, youTube or whatever, it’s just easier to talk about if we pick one thing as our example.)
So you create a blog post. It can be a written post, a video post, or an audio post. Whatever you enjoy creating that will help you get your message across. Chances are, the one you prefer doing is also the one your dream clients prefer consuming. So it’s a win-win.
Now it’s time to promote your content, aka content marketing. Here’s how we tie everything together:
- In step 2 of this post, you determined where your clients are most likely to go when they’re ready to find a solution to their struggle. How can you promote your content in THAT place?
- And, as we discussed earlier, you’re creating content that meets your potential clients where they are now. Not 2 steps before, not 2 steps after.
What are they specifically searching for? Let’s use this particular post as an example.
I determined that my potential clients were searching for a solution to getting more clients. Not “client attraction,” not “content that converts,” and not “make more sales.” According to my own market research, combined with Google’s Keyword Planner Tool, people who are growing their online business search for “get more clients.” So, I created this 3-part blog series to meet them where they are now and help them solve that problem by addressing the symptoms and introducing them to the best solution.
Because I know my dream clients are struggling when they’re on Facebook, I’m going to promote this blog post in numerous Facebook groups. But I’m not going to simply say, “Hey, I have a new blog post, check it out…” I’m going to show them the exact benefits they’ll get from reading this series. I’m also going to be very clear about who this post is for – who needs it and who will benefit from it.
I’m going to use a strategy to SHOW my audience how they’re wasting time, effort and money on tactics that aren’t getting good-enough results and that there’s a better way! An easier way that gets BIG results! And I’m going to put it in front of them when they’re actually struggling with that EXACT thing.
Meanwhile, I’m using SEO tactics to make sure this post shows up in search results when people are looking for better ROI for getting more clients. It will also rank well for content strategy, content marketing and content promotion and content plan because I’ve sprinkled those keywords throughout the post. So I’ll not only show up on FB when my ideal clients are feeling the struggle and wishing for a better way, I’ll also show up when they jump on Google to explore other solutions. (And yes, someday I’ll have a book on Amazon too, for people who want to buy a book and DIY their own solution.)
Best of all, this 3-part series is just phase one of an expertly-designed marketing strategy that will stretch across the world, find my soulmate clients and position me as the best possible (and most FUN) person to help them transform a major pain into a massive success! A strategy that busts through the B.S. you’ve been fed from other sources, delivers value in a way that’s designed to help you get results and let’s you decide for yourself if this is an area you can DIY or if you want help quickly creating your own unique and amazing content that converts!
For me, the real fun is what comes after these basics – when we kick it up a notch and lay the foundation for building an EMPIRE. That’s when we go a layer deeper with our existing strategy and show up even BIGGER with blog posts (SEO, backlinks, internal links, etc.), social media posts (promo posts, lead gen posts, live streams, my FB group, etc.), Facebook ads (warming up cold audiences, retargeting, engagement on the live streams), email marketing (content upgrades, more tips, more value, sales funnel, etc.), and Facebook bots (to engage with my audience & get them to the events on time).
FUN stuff when you’re ready for it!!!!
Content Strategy Is THE Difference Between Winging It And Making Money!
What you can’t tell from a single post is that this is part of a larger marketing strategy. And that’s where things get really interesting. THIS is the reason you can’t simply show up everyday, have fun, doing whatever feels good and expect to make a million dollars.
You need a strategy to translate how all this benefits your potential clients and why YOU are the #1 person they NEED to help them get what they want.
This involves building trust and tapping into buyer psychology. Did you just bristle when I mentioned buyer psychology? I don’t blame you! This part of marketing has allowed too many people to make a fortune with their snake-oil cure-all. I’d be willing to bet you’ve invested a LOT of money into solutions that didn’t get the results they promised and left you kicking yourself for falling for their marketing. (Been there, done that, bought the burn cream too…)
But I’m here to tell you – to promise you – that buyer psychology is a tool that every successful business owner needs to know how to use and that it can be used for GOOD just as much as EVIL.
This is your chance to battle evil and win the day for all the good people in the world! So please join me in saving the world, one client at a time, with successful marketing plans for all the enlightened entrepreneurs in the world!
You CAN guide your audience gently towards a sale, using buyer psychology, without being sleazy, manipulative or tricky. In fact, when done right (and used for good) your clients will THANK YOU with huge smiles on their face!!! They’ll have the opposite of buyer’s remorse, they’ll have buyer’s GLEE! And, you’ll have the satisfaction of saving them from snake-oil peddlers who don’t honestly care about their results like you do. Because I KNOW you care. (That’s why you’re here!)
When done right, you don’t need countdown timers and scarcity tactics to tap into your potential client’s sense of urgency. They’re suffering from something right now and YOU have the cure!! They don’t need a countdown timer to tell them they need to buy the solution from you, they WANT a solution as quickly as freaking possible! Instant gratification can be just as strong of a motivator as scarcity.
Help them trust that they will get results from you and their sense of urgency will be real. No manipulation needed.
That’s what I mean by knowing and understanding the psychological triggers and using them for good instead of evil.
(Ready to create authentic and inspiring content that converts, using all the buyer’s psychology triggers without the sleaze, hype or B.S. so YOU can attract dream clients and win the day for GOOD? Let’s do it! Get in touch to transform your content and marketing.)
CONCLUSION
As I mentioned earlier, marketing is a vast and deep well of information and there simply is no way to cover all of it in a single blog post. But I’m excited to go into each of these topics further, so YOU can get bigger ROI with less effort too! Which is why I’ll be live streaming a different masterclass each week October, 11 – November 3rd, 2017 over at the Real To Ideal business page on Facebook.
✨ If you want to learn more about how to get focused, create a clear and captivating message and how to spread that message in the kinds of places your dream clients will see you as the expert and line up to hire you – hop over to the Real To Ideal biz page on FB and RSVP for the events.
✨ If you have any questions about the topics we discussed in this blog series, or there’s an area you’d like more information on, just leave a comment below and let me know! ⬇️⬇️⬇️
✨ And of course, if you’re starting to see your own marketing efforts in a whole new light and you want to fix it FAST, let’s chat!
1 thought on “Get More Clients With Content Marketing [Part 3]”